The Financialization of Fun: Crypto Gaming Thesis

In the medium term, we’re going to see more gameplay-first games launch with crypto concepts and innovations. These innovations will happen along a spectrum from cosmetic skins becoming NFTs to token models where gamers can play for ownership in a game.

While many will try to supplement knowledge gaps with crypto-native VCs/advisors who tout they can handle the tokenomics, in reality, the one-in-a-million game is going to be a result of crypto-natives working hand-in-hand with experienced game developers/economists to take a “player first” approach to solve difficult design problems.

Axie and its dozens of clones imply that perhaps fun isn’t what’s key for a crypto game to grow, but rather gameplay mechanics that reward players with real-world earnings. Illuvium, another game that won’t be launching for another 2 years, has found itself with an $11B valuation ($ILV) driven largely by introducing a pre-game token and staking mec... See more

Most games won’t cross the adoption chasm from the early market (crypto enthusiasts) to mainstream market (traditional gamers or low-SES players). Nonetheless, games like Axie are paving the way for others to cross over to a large population of people who want to earn by playing games.

Game psychologists note that a lot of the joy and addiction comes from unexpected and randomized rewards. The ability to easily acquire a known reward with money might actually rob the games of what makes them fun. The direction of NFTs and many P2E games are fast racing towards pure financialization which could ultimately kill core gameplay. Espec... See more

crypto will unlock a paradigm shift in gaming. Though it’s still unclear what exactly that shift will look like, I believe that, in the short term, we’ll see earn-first crypto games like Axie and Zed Run create a black hole by onboarding players using financial incentives. Supplementing this growth will be guilds and DAOs on the periphery. In the m... See more

If a game’s marketing and distribution strategy centres around crypto exchanges, token launch platforms and guilds, they are not targeting traditional gamers despite their spoken desire to.

Meanwhile, some developers will spend years trying to rival a AAA game to target the mass gaming community, but it’s possible that crypto games that see early success simply embrace crypto-native principles where people can have fun by earning. A huge potential pitfall is sinking months to years developing a game with both mid-tier gameplay and unc... See more

The auction house is a case study on how financializing game assets can short circuit the natural pace of item drops, making the game feel less rewarding for some players.